


Under the Leaves

by EudociaCovert



Series: The Best Path [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone's so glad to be out of the damn desert, Freedom Fighters, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jet is awesome at hitting weak spots, Longshot has a sense of humor, Recovery, Series Title Drop, Smellerbee's a hugger okay, Violence against campfires, Zuko's awesome at hitting faces, Zuko's awful past, a little sad, but the way emotionally damaged people do it, nobody freak out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9447335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: The morning after the desert. Zuko makes a decision concerning the Freedom Fighters, and he and Jet come to a strange understanding. Part 6 in 'The Best Path' series.





	

_No matter how things seem to change, never forget who you are_.

Zuko opens his eyes, blinking himself out of a night long past into the present one. He’s lying on his back, on a deliberately placed stack of boughs and grasses instead of sand. It’s strange to only see pockets of stars through tree branches instead of filling the entire sky. When he turns his head he can see a pile of embers, a sleeping Smellerbee curled up with her mouth hanging open, Jet’s back.

A quite rustle draws Zuko’s attention to Longshot, rejoining them with gathered branches in his arms. He’s not wearing his hat or shoes. He is wearing his quiver, and his bow is strung and slung over his shoulder.

Zuko pushes himself upright and watches as Longshot lays the wood down beside the coals and begins coaxing a flame into being. Zuko considers offering his help, but decides against it. He watches instead, how Longshot lays the twigs, blows on the grass, attends to the glow. There’s no reverence in his treatment of the element, but there is respect. Longshot sits back and watches when the flame starts climbing. Zuko thinks he looks troubled, but the longer he looks at the archer the less sure he is.

Jet makes a sound, something like a rasping breath, and something changes in Longshot’s face, just a little. He leans back, stands. His dark eyes meet Zuko’s. He has such a deep stare, it’s hard not to look away. He just looks, until Zuko tenses.

“What?” he hisses.

Longshot points at him.            

Zuko waits for him to say something, but that’s it, Longshot just points and waits. “I don’t know what you want,” he admits through gritted teeth.

Longshot points down at the ground.

Oh.

_You. Lie down._

“You couldn’t just _say_ that?”

Silence. The same stare.

It’s just so _stupid_ , Zuko has _heard_ him talk. And he doesn’t need to be told to go to sleep!

He’s so sick of being treated like this. He doesn’t need Longshot, or Jet, or Smellerbee. He isn’t weak. And they don’t need him, not like they seem to think they do, they aren’t weak either. And even if they did, he’s not the kind of person who should be in their group. He’s everything wrong, everything they would hate, if they knew.

Zuko lays down again and closes his eyes. Tomorrow they’ll reach the town, his debt to Longshot will be paid, and he’ll be free to go. He can leave this whole mess behind him. It’ll be better for everyone when he’s gone.

\--

The sky is grey when Zuko wakes again. It’s still startling to see trees.

“Hey.”

Zuko turns his head. Smellerbee is awake, looking at him through the smoking ashes of the night’s fire. She has one leg bent, the injured one stretched out, a long knife in her lap and a cloth in hand.

“Hey,” he answers. She looks flat in the bare morning light. Her injuries are harder to see. Her fingers are moving in practices swipes, oiling her blade.

Zuko draws himself up, wincing as sore muscles pull. “No one woke me up for watch.”

“Longshot said you weren’t sleeping well, that you kept waking up.”

Zuko frowns, irritated. “Did he _say_ that or just _point_ at things?” he mutters.

Smellerbee makes an amused sound. “Pointing counts.”

 “Pointing does _not_ count.”

“Yeah, it does. Longshot only uses his voice with strangers, or when he thinks you’re being an idiot. Don’t worry, he likes you fine.”

“I don’t care if he likes me,” Zuko gripes as he pulls himself to his feet. He doesn’t _want_ Longshot to like him, Longshot was the only one who hadn’t gone crazy in the desert, Zuko needs him to stay sane. He shakes the thought off, takes stock. His swords are present. He’s aching, his arm hurts, and his legs feel weak, but he isn’t very hungry. The healer had said his wrist will be fine in a few weeks if he’s careful with it. Considering what kind of luck he usually has, he’s in better shape than he could have been. “How close do you think the village is?”

Smellerbee makes a gesture at something behind him. Zuko turns his head. He can see the thin lines of smoke from household fires climbing the sky between the branches. “Oh. Close then.”

“I wouldn’t mind staying in the forest for a few days though,” Smellerbee says.

“What? _Why?_ Our destination is _right there_. _”_

 “It’s easier to get what we need in a forest than in a town,” Smellerbee says, sliding her blade back into a hidden sheath. “We can find food, and water. Make shelter. Relax for a couple days.”

Zuko’s mouth tries to smile, thinking of Uncle, face grotesquely swollen and blotched. “That’s only if you know how a forest works.”

“We know how a forest works. The Freedom Fighters used to live in a place like this.”

Zuko raises a brow at the information, looks at the trees around them with different eyes. “If it was so great why did you leave?”

The sound of movement draws his attention from the trees to Jet, who’s rolling over. Smellerbee reaches out and pats his ankle and he smiles vaguely at her before his eyes find Zuko. They’re hard to read. “Forests burn,” he says.

Oh.

Zuko swallows. Looks away. “We should make a stretcher for Smellerbee. So her leg doesn’t get worse.”

“I’m right here, I’m not a baby,” Smellerbee protests, voice fierce and nose scrunched. “And I’m not _dying_.”

“Calm down, he’s just worrying.” Jet placates with a lazy grin.

“I am not worrying.” Zuko growls at them. They don’t take him seriously. Smellerbee’s smirking now and Jet’s grin grows to shows teeth. “I’m _not_!”

“Sure,” Jet says readily, and then coughs, a flat breathy one.

“Hey,” Smellerbee says, frowning.

“I’m fine.” Jet tells her, but he lays back, eyes slipping closed. His breathing sounds stilted.

There’s a noise behind Zuko, and he turns to see Longshot weaving through trees towards them. He comes to a stop on the edge of their camp, eyes scanning the dead fire, Smellerbee, Jet, and Zuko. Then he looks at Smellerbee, eyebrows ticking up, then at Jet.

“Got it,” Smellerbee says. “Hey Blue, help me build the fire back up.”

“That’s not my-” Zuko starts, then chokes the familiar words back. Being called Blue is better than the other option. “Fine.”

He pays close attention to how he arranges the twigs and blows the grass so he doesn’t have to think about these crazy people, or anything else. He’s leaving, he doesn’t _have_ to think anymore. It won’t matter soon, any of this.

When the fire is dancing again, singing on the edge of his senses but carefully unaffected by his breath, Smellerbee produces a small earthen bowl filled with water, which she places above the flames. Longshot bends over to drop a handful of wide green leaves into the bowl.

“We’re going to look for some food,” Smellerbee says. “And don’t say a thing about my leg, it’s just foraging.” Longshot offers her a hand, which she uses to pull herself to her feet. She’s in pain, Zuko can see it. They’re all in pain. “Keep an eye out for Jet?’

Zuko nods at her, and sits back, making room for Jet to scoot over and sit right in front of the fire. The leader’s face is blank, eyes unreadable. He cups the bowl between his hands and just watches the leaves swirl slowly on top of the water.

Longshot and Smellerbee leave, the girl’s arm slung over the archer’s shoulder and Longshot’s hand resting comfortably on her waist.

It’s awkward alone with Jet. Zuko hasn’t talked to him since that insane conversation at sunset the day before. Part of him wants to demand answers, demand that Jet start making sense, and part of him wants to leave it. He’s not even sure Jet remembers what he said. There had been something off, distracted and irrational about his mood after they escaped the hive. Maybe he didn’t mean it.

Jet coughs. It bends him at the waist, goes on for too long.                                  

Zuko shifts, uneasy. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jet’s eyes dart to him, back to the bowl. “It’s the smoke, from the hive,” Jet explains. “Won’t last long. If you boil this type of leaves and breathe the steam it gets rid of it before things get bad.” Jet looks up at him, that narrow calculating look that made Zuko think he was like Azula (he came back for Smellerbee and gave Zuko his- He’s like Azula, but he’s also nothing like her at all) “You should have a go too, just in case. You were in there.”

“Not for as long as you were,” Zuko mumbles. The hive really was much worse for Jet than it had been for him. Zuko was only in there a few hours, could make his own light, had markers to follow, and wasn’t checking every tunnel he found like Jet had been.  For Jet it was almost a whole day, in the dark, with no direction. No wonder he started seeing things.

“Still, wouldn’t hurt,” Jet says, removing his hands, and laying them in his lap. The bowl is starting to steam. “Something like this can kill you if you let it get out of hand.”

“I’m not a Freedom Fighter,” Zuko says, because it feels like he has to. “Don’t take care of me.”

Jet hums evasively and bends down to breathe in the steam rising from the bowl. When he sits back up, he catches Zuko’s eye with his own, his face serious. “I don’t want you not to die because I want you to be a Freedom Fighter. I want you to be a Freedom Fighter so you won’t die.”

He keeps just _saying_ these things.

“Stop it,” Zuko orders him. On principle.

Jet sighs. He seems tired. “It hasn’t all been bad, has it?”

Zuko stares, uncomprehending. There were sandstorms. Dead refugees. Sand-benders. Really gross food. He got _captured_. Both Smellerbee and Jet almost _died_.

Jet must read the incredulous expression on his face, because his lip quirks up before he amends, “Having someone watch your back, I mean.”

Zuko wants to deny it, to point out that half this mess wouldn’t have happened if he’d been alone, but he can’t get the words out. Because Jet’s right. “Being on your own isn’t always the best path,” he says instead.

Jet stares for a moment, then smiles a small thing. “Does that mean you’ve made a decision?”

Zuko sets his shoulders, nods once. “I’m leaving when we reach the town.”

The smile is gone, like it never sat on Jet’s face. He just stares blankly, then nods curtly and bends back over the bowl.

Silence stretches. Zuko rubs his palms against his thighs. “My debt will be fulfilled,” he says, even though he should shut up. “I can leave without having sacrificed my honor.”

“And that’s the only thing keeping you with us?” Jet asks. “Honor?”

Something tightens in Zuko’s chest. “Jet.” He sighs. “You’re a good leader.”

“Just not good enough for you.” There’s something ugly in the rebel’s voice that Zuko hasn’t heard from him before.

“You protect your people,” Zuko barrels on. “And to keep them safe, you have to forget about me.”

Jet’s eyes narrow. “Explain.”

There are so many reasons. “I can’t. But it’s true.”

Jet leans back. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Someone was following you,” he says. “When we met. You panicked then, too.”

It seems like so long ago, but the second Jet says it Zuko feels a remembered clenching in his gut. This is why he has to be alone. This is why he’s leaving. But it doesn’t mean he has to leave them helpless; if Jet knows there’s danger he’ll protect them. To his dying breath. Zuko knows that now.

“Her name is Azula,” he says, and just speaking the name makes him want to check over his shoulder. “She’s young, but you can’t match her, don’t try. If you hear about her, I don’t care from who or how vaguely, you grab Longshot and Smellerbee and you _run_. And no matter what, you’ve _never_ heard of me.”

Jet leans forward, eyebrows furrows and eyes intense. “What did you _do_ to her?” There’s concern in his voice, but there’s a mad hunger too. He wants Zuko to have done something.

Zuko looks away, uncomfortable. “It’s less that I did something, and more that I’m in her way.” It hurts to say it, it feels like an act of betrayal, but the truth is that him and Uncle looked at possible torture and death in the Earth Kingdom, or being handed over to Azula, and chose _the Earth Kingdom_. She’s his sister. But she’s also _cruel,_ and Zuko isn't safe from her, let alone Jet and his.

“How?”

Zuko grimaces. “That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters enough to make you push everyone away and run scared,” Jet says. “If you weren’t facing her alone, if you let us help you take her out-”

“ _No._ ” Zuko barks. His hand darts out, grips Jet’s shoulder. “You _cannot_ go after her. You won’t win, and even if you did, her father would send _armies_ to avenge her. You’d die, Smellerbee and Longshot would die, _everyone would die_.”

Jet glances at his hand. Zuko loosens his grip. “Who the hell is her father?”

It shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen but Zuko is still thrown, horrified that he’s made a huge mistake and Jet will get them killed, be killed, so when Jet asks who her father is Zuko’s hand moves on its own, leaving Jet’s shoulder and coming up to touch rough fingertips to his scar.

Every muscle in Jet’s body tenses at once, his face contorting, first in horror, then in pure rage.

Zuko drops his hand quickly, gulps a breath of air. He wants to run but Jet is still and listening, and he can’t waste this, if he wastes this they could all _die_. This was such a horrible idea, he just wanted Jet to know they should be careful. He has to fix this, and the only way to do that is to push down how it cuts at him and make himself talk. As much truth as he can, because Jet would know a lie, and Jet, who would come back for Smellerbee and face Azula for Zuko  _deserves_ more than that.  “I’ve made some problems for the Fire Nation. After he let me live. It’s… embarrassing for their family. So he sent Azula to… take me out before I cause any more problems. And she will _kill_ you if you're with me.” Breathe, in, breathe out. “It’s one reason why I’m not with the old man anymore. And it’s one reason why I can _never stay with you_.”

Jet’s lip curls up, derisive. “He did not. _Let_. You live.”

Zuko wants nothing more than _not to talk about this_. “He did.”

“ _No._ You _survived_. _They_ don’t get to have that.”

“I wasn’t fighting. I didn’t survive. I was _begging on my knees_.” The shame of saying it is a buffeting wave. It makes him queasy, like swallowing sea water. “He let me live.”

Jet lashes out, his hand snatching the bowl from the flames, lifting is above his head and _smashing_ it down. The bowl shatters, fire and water hissing in protest, and Zuko pushes himself back, away from the angry steam, hand on his sheath, eyes wide. Jet leaps into the campfire, kicking and stomping at the hissing wood until the fire is completely dead, just scattered ash.

Then he just stands there.

Neither of them move. Jet’s breathing heavily, a rasp still present in his voice. Zuko watches him, ready for an attack, for him to collapse, for anything.

Jet’s eyes meet his, and they’re the closest thing to an explosion Zuko’s ever seen on a human face. “Stay with me. We’ll get them back.”

Zuko swallows. “No, Jet.”

Jet breathes in, and out. “Then come to Ba Sing Se with us. I hear people can make a life, can eat good food every day. It’ll be a safe place. We can have a second chance behind that wall.”

“And every moment I spend traveling with you, every person who sees us together, will be putting you in danger.”

“Then _find_ us.” Jet clenches his fists. His skin is reddened from the steam. “Make it to Ba Sing Se on your own and _find us_.”

Zuko is shaking his head before Jet’s finished. “She'd find out-”

“I thought you were just used to being alone,” Jet interrupts. “Or you’d lost someone, or been betrayed. But that’s not why you won’t let anyone in, is it. It’s because of that,” he points at Zuko’s face and it takes everything in him not to flinch. “It’s because you think it’s _your fault_. You’re _ashamed_ and you won’t let yourself find anything good in this world because a monster hurt you when you were a kid, and you think you _deserved it_.”

“You don’t understand,” Zuko croaks.

“What did he say?” Jet stalks forward, and when did Zuko forget how incredibly _dangerous_ Jet is? “What lie did he stick in your head, what do you hear in his voice at night?”

 _You will learn respect. And suffering will be your teacher_.

Jet is in front of him now, looming, cold. “What did he break in you, what did he take to make you _weak_?”

“Shut up!” Zuko bellows, springing to his feet. Jet’s taller than him, but Zuko can scowl just as hard. “I lost _everything_!”

“We all lost everything!” Jet shouts back. “And none of us can go back. You can’t regain what they took from you. But you can quit forgetting _who you are_ and build from what you still have. You are a survivor. You have a chance, to fight, or to find peace, to be something more than a hunted animal. What would your mother think of you if you _didn’t take it_?”

Zuko punches him, quick and hard enough to send Jet stumbling several steps back. The rebel throws his arms out for balance, braces his feet, and then begins to cough.

And he just keeps coughing, deep and ugly from his chest, until he’s bent in two with his hands on his knees, chest heaving.

Zuko drops to his knees, frantic hands skimming the devastation of their fire. He begins stacking twigs to the side of the ashy sludge, cursing as he looks for spark rocks, still cursing as he sparks them over the kindling. The fire starts immediately, reacting to his desperation. He sifts through the wet ash with his hands, pulling out the flat leaves. They’re still hot to touch. His knuckles sting.

Jet isn’t coughing anymore. “Blue.”

“Where is a _damn_ bowl?”

“Blue, hey. Quit it, I’m okay.”

“No, you aren't,” Zuko growls back, meeting his eyes. Jet blinks, relaxes slowly. The sudden calm is as frightening as his earlier rage, in another way. Zuko looks down, still sifting for the leaves Jet needs.

Jet touches his shoulder and Zuko snaps out a hand, knocking him off. It makes his wrist throb. There’s heat in his breath, just under his skin. “Don’t,” he grits out.

“You know, this is why you need to stay.”

Zuko flinches, steadfastly keeps his eyes down.

Jet sinks down beside him, breathes out like he’s an old man. “You care. So much. I don’t think you have any idea how rare that is, in kids like us. Someone's going to stamp that out of you, if no one's protecting it.”

“I’m not like you,” Zuko says, but he can taste the lie as it leaves his tongue, can hear it in his own tone. He sees Jet smile out of the corner of his eye, and knows he hears it too.

\--

The walk to the town is surprisingly calm. Smellerbee has a branch wedged under her arm, a makeshift crutch. Longshot stays beside her, but doesn’t reach out to help, or kick away obstacles on the forest floor, until she asks. Jet keeps brushing shoulders with Zuko when the path becomes narrow, expression the same as it had when Longshot and Smellerbee returned to find him hunkered over a different bowl of notably muddy water and crushed leaves, in front of a second fire beside the ruins of the first one, his cheek bruised and swelling up, and Zuko seated several yards away, knuckles red, arms crossed, and scowling. Smellerbee had rolled her eyes, and Longshot had taken in the campsite, caught Jet’s eye, and raised an eyebrow. Very slowly. And Jet had smirked, just like he is now, every inch of him alive with irritating smugness.

The village is just waking, softly lit and open in a way Zuko hasn’t seen in a while. The Fire Nation hasn’t been here, yet. They find the building the rebel who knew Uncle had told them of. Jet leads them in, but Zuko hangs back. He should leave now, while they’re distracted. It would be easier that way.

He doesn’t. He waits until they come back out, until Smellerbee looks at him with confusion in her eyes but a smile on her face.

“I’m not traveling with you anymore.”

Smellerbee stops smiling. “What? No.”

Zuko makes himself not look away. “It’s better that way.”

“It isn’t, it’s _stupid._ Jet, tell him it’s stupid.”

 “It's time to let him go,” Jet says. She looks at him, astonished, then glares. Jet just stares evenly back, and says softly, “hawk in a cage, kid.”

She holds her glare, but in the face of Jet's gaze she eventually lowers her eyes to the ground, her shoulders falling in a defeated slump. Then she turns towards Zuko, tosses away her crutch, and lunges at him. He barely has time to tense before her arms are wraps around his middle.

Smellerbee tightens her grip and Zuko realizes she’s hugging him. His arms hover awkwardly around her shoulders, not touching. Tense and bewildered, he looks at the others for direction before he can help himself.

With a completely straight face Longshot brings his arms up and mimes hugging an invisible person.

Zuko glares at him, hard, then at Jet when he snorts in amusement. But he takes the suggestion and hugs Smellerbee back, just as hard as she’s hugging him.

She doesn’t look at him after she lets go, just accepts the crutch Longshot hands her and moves away. Longshot follows her, and Jet steps into the space they leave.

“Take the name.”

Zuko tenses, opens his mouth to deny it.

Jet lifts a hand, palm out, stalling him. “It’s of no use to me. I don’t need it to know who I am. A _word_ doesn’t make me, just like they didn't ruin _you._ ”

“Jet-“

“Just take it, all right? So you can remember that we’ll be there, if you ever need us. That there are people in _front_ of you, not just behind.”

Zuko’s chest is tight, like it’s too full to admit air. His eyes are stinging. He bows to Jet, the second time he’s done so. “I’ll take care of it,” he says. What he means is  _I won't harm your people under your name_. Because Zuko isn’t Earth, but he’s come to respect Earth, their drive and loyalty and honor, and the idea of donning red and striking against them feels like a nightmare, and to do so while wearing green feels like a death. Maybe _this_ is why his Uncle had done what he did after the Great Siege. Why he would beg with a smile and forgive the cruel. Zuko understands the penance in it now, in wandering this broken land, sharing the hunger and pain caused by his ancestors.

Jet smiles soft, like he does when he’s watching Longshot or Smellerbee, and raises a hand in nonchalant farewell. Then he turns around and begins to walk. Smellerbee waves with far more gusto, and falls in on his right. Longshot nods at Zuko, long and solemn, and falls in on his left.

The Freedom Fighters don’t look back, and Zuko doesn’t look away until the trees have hid them completely from sight.

When he ducks into the building where he’ll gain the papers he needs to enter Ba Sing Se the man asks what name he wants.

Zuko answers with Shi.


End file.
